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It’s a sure sign school is only days away when backpacks are flying off the shelves and filler paper and pencils dominate the aisles in most stores.

Some lucky Gadsden County parents didn’t have to fight the crowds at retail stores to get their kids back-to-school supplies. Saturday, Aug. 10, the Gadsden County School District held its annual school supplies giveaway at James A. Shanks Middle School. Hundreds of children and parents took advantage of the opportunity.

Midway city officials were all smiles Thursday, Aug. 8, at the official ribbon cutting ceremony for Fire Station No. 2. County officials as well as state and federal representatives were on hand for the momentous occasion.

The Midway Town Council voted unanimously during the Aug. 1 monthly meeting not to allow the sale of alcohol at a proposed adult entertainment center. There wasn’t a vacant seat in the meeting chamber as opponents packed the house.

“You don’t have enough police, the sheriff has said, through his spokesman, that it will stretch them to their limits,” said the Rev. Charles Scriven, who has been an outspoken critic of the proposed club from the beginning.

Harold Usry doesn’t really have a place to call home. Now 56, the entire state of Florida, from Escambia County (Pensacola) to Monroe County (Key West) is where he lives.

Usry has a most unusual occupation: He paints flagpoles. That’s how he makes his living, going from town to town, just painting flagpoles. His meager belongings are never too far away from him, usually tied to his Huffy mountain bike that he lovingly refers to “the old lady.”

In a year when the number of “A” elementary school dropped by 48 percent statewide, Gadsden County kept the A’s it had last year and added one more, for a total of four elementary schools earning top marks.

“That’s significant in this particular environment,” Reginald James, superintendent of Schools, said in a press conference.

First Baptist Church in Quincy was almost packed to the rafters Tuesday, July 23, when the Daraja Children Choir of Africa performed. The children’s dynamic voices had people standing on their feet, waving their hands in praise.

The couple had been dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde” by law enforcement authorities but what 35-year-old William Larry Easterwood Jr. and Elizabeth Lauren Watts, 30, are suspected of doing is not a movie. However, one alleged caper committed in Havana on May 8 was caught on camera.